


Heart Sore

by foolhardy



Series: Finding Luke verse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Alderaan, Alderaan religion is unspecified spirits, Bail is not adjusting, Bail was going to be a doting father, Breha is a good mom, But he is mostly just worried and unable to cope, Gen, I thought Winter was Leia's Aunt so had to make an OC instead, Leia is Sick, Mystery Illness, References to Depression, Slavery, Tatooine, Tatooine Slave Culture, but she's okay, it's everyone else who is not, made up medicine, references to organ transplants, references to slavery and not feeding slaves and slaves being killed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:01:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolhardy/pseuds/foolhardy
Summary: Bail is worried, Breha strikes a deal and Leia is fine. Obi-wan gets a sudden urge to check on the Lars'. Leia suddenly wants to learn self-defence.And Luke? He is alive.





	Heart Sore

Bail was worried about his daughter. This was, he would grudgingly admit, a common state of mind. Leia was a determined child, but in this last year, she had become obsessive. First, it had been a black depression. That had come out of nowhere and had thrown the entire palace into disarray. Her temper would flare and then crash into black sorrow and there was no reason for it. She had been such a steady child, patent and cheerful, and it wasn't that she wasn't patient or even that she was no longer cheerful. It was just the black sullen lethargy that would seize his daughter and steal all the joy from her, it was so very strange.

The moodiness had sprung up one week. And the next Bail had brought in a physician, then a physiatrist, and by the next month Leia had been pinched and prodded by what seemed like the entire quadrant - though of course, it wasn't, they couldn't trust the entire quadrant not to test her blood. Bail would have liked the entire quadrant to give their opinion, because those that had seen her could tell him nothing. He wanted his little girl back. But instead, he had this snarling sullen depressed little girl who would sleep through her lessons and snap at her tutors. 

Her obsessive moods were worse though. When she first broke through the lethargy of her depression, just after the horde of medical opinions had fallen quiet, Leia had refused to sleep for two days. She had holed up in the library and screamed at anyone who tried to remove her back to her rooms. It had been upsetting. Leia had always been so well behaved, to have her suddenly screaming her lungs out was so drastic a break from her usual self that Bail had feard for his daughter. It was Breha who had eventually reasoned with her. They had struck a deal, Leia would be allowed to spend ten hours in the library at a time as long as she took a break of equal length at rest. It had worked.

All her efforts in the library had been focused on one topic and it was the most confusing part of it all. He knew the staff was talking. The holo-news was polite enough, but the galaxy all knew that Princess Leia was sick. Bail had managed to keep the topic of her choice out of the news though. It might have been a harmless detail, but it made it all more strange. An eight-year-old should not spend obsessive hours poring over data-cubes on mining. Alderaan didn't even have much in the way of mined resources. And Leia had certainly not focused on the few resources Alderaan did mine. Leia had spent three weeks ignoring her lessons going instead to the library with a diligence that Bail had once admired in her. Now it worried him. After almost a month of this schedule, she had relapsed into lethargy. 

The physiatrists said that it could be this wasting disorder or that mental one, the debated the early stages of Syndromes and argued about rare Complexes. Bail hated it. Breha hated it. Leia didn't seem to mind. But she didn't mind much nowadays. The depression that had stolen his Leia let things that would once have irritated her slide by. She was so changed sometimes Bail didn't know if he was still his Leia. Some days were so bad he wondered if this was what came of her bloodline. Breha would set him right if he ever spoke these thoughts, she never had a doubt, but then she was fearless. 

Bail was not a fearless leader. He was a politician and had plenty to fear. He regularly visited the Imperial Centre and ran into such horrors as Vader, Thrawn and the Emperor himself. He could not be considered a sane man if such people did not make him fearful, not only of his life but of the fate of the people he represented. 

Today his thoughts were straying to those people and he needed his attention here. With the trouble in his own home. Leia had stormed into their rooms this morning and demanded self-defence lessons from her mother. Breha had stalled and now they were seated at breakfast. A familiar determined expression was in Leia's eyes and it was both a relief to see and a worry. Another worry. She was eating just as much as before. The physicians had eventually settled that she did have a wasting illness, but had been unable to diagnose which it was. For certainly she ate and ate but never seemed to fatten, she had also failed to grow since this had begun. Bail tried not to let it all weigh on him, but it did. When the physicians had asked her about the binge eating she had frowned at them through the soporific effects of her depression and told them that she must. 

Bail watched her eat as Leia argued her case against her mother's pacifism. It wasn't that Breha was against Leia learning self-defence, it was more Breha wanted to be sure of Leia's reasons before agreeing. And Leia knew it too. Between mouthfuls, Leia explained. But it was not an encouraging explanation to Bail. There was too much passion in it. It felt too much like her screaming fits when denied access to the library. Was this how life was going to be. A daughter either trapped by depression or uncontrollable with obsession?

\---

Breha took Leia aside after breakfast. There was a light to her daughter's eyes that Breha recognised from Padme's face. Perhaps Anakin had had that too, once. It was strong in Leia. "You seem to understand my concerns."

"Yes, mama." Leia sat, fidgeting in a way she had mastered before this. Breha sighed, she could see Leia would find a way to do this regardless of a parental or royal decree. 

"Then you will understand that I am not satisfied with your reasons for wanting these lessons." Something less than anger flickered across Leia's stubbornly set face. "So we will come to a compromise instead." Breha thought for a moment while Leia considered this, her mouth flatting as she swung her feet. "For as long as you take self-defence lessons, you will spend an equal amount of time learning about mending people." Leia looked up a spark of curiosity in her gaze, Breha felt her heart lift and pressed a hand to her chest. It was good to see that interest in her daughter's face. Leia's eyes followed the movement and curiously bloomed. 

"Would I learn about prosthetics?" She asked. "Like yours, mama?" Breha beckoned Leia closer. 

"Yes you would," Breha tucked her daughter close, "when you know about how organic organs work then you can study how pulmonodes replace them." Leia placed a small hand on Breha's chest. "Do you know why I did not have them covered in synth-skin?" Breha had told most parts of the story of her Day of Challenge and the fall she had taken, but Leia had never asked why the pulmonode heart and lungs were sealed with transparent flexi-graft. At her daughters quiet negative the Queen continued. There had been a variety of reasons, some of which were very selfish. "None of us would live if we did not have each other," Breha said. It was a trite truth. "By the speed of my guard, the skill of our surgeons and the grace of Alderaan I lived to take my Challenge again. Each of us has tasks before us, some we set ourselves, others are set for us, and I believe, that none of us could accomplish them without the aid of guards, or surgeons or the blessing of Alderaan." Leia was looking up at her dark eyes, she didn't understand, not yet. "To keep them uncovered shows my respect for the people who got to me in time, for the people who installed the pulmonodes and for all the people who prayed to the spirits of Alderaan for my recovery." At this Leia nodded and spoke with her next words.

"Respect is only given by those who are respected." Queen and Princess recited, just as Queen and Princess had recited when Breha was the Princess. That was not all there was too it, it was also part of her legend, part of the image of the queen to have recovered from such grievous injury. And it was a legend that worked in her favour with the people. That the site of the pulmonodes could make people uncomfortable enough to rush to agree with her was just another perk. 

"Call for Karvan." Leia scampered up and ran for the comm. Breha watched her go and wondered. She knew Bail was struggling with this change, he seemed unable to accept the new reality in their daughter's condition. And yet, Leia was strong, she might have an undiagnosed wasting disorder that threw her into lethargy and fits of temper, but she was still very much herself. Leia had always had a temper, it showed more often now she was exhausted by her disease. Leia had also been driven and much like her first period of obsessive study, she tended to focus her whole being on a task. It was not so strange that when she now had the energy she used it to excess. 

When Karvan glided in Leia jumped back up from where she had settled beside Breha, Karvan was among her favourite courtiers. A distinction that had grown more severe as the mysterious disease that had seized the princess divided the court into factions of opinion. Karvan had contrived to be the least offensive in her attempts to reason with the princess. Even Breha had been stung more often by the lash of her daughter's temper. Leia had always admired Karvan's implacable practicality and as a younger child had mimicked Karvan's Nabooian accent, a rather alarming trait in a child Breha had taken pains to disguise the origin of. 

Breha explained their deal to Karvan who nodded thoughtfully. Leia made her own less than convincing arguments in her favour. At great length, Karvan spoke her first words, "Will you not be following in Alderaan's tradition of peace?" Breha felt the phantom pain of her heart skipping a beat - of course, it never did so. Leia took an astonished step back from Karvan, who patiently waited out Leia's stuttered denial. Instead of countering Leia's scrambled words, Karvan merely raised a delicately arched eyebrow. Everything about the woman was delicate. Delicate looking, anyway. She had a spirit of Mandalorian iron and was twice as ruthless. 

"I don't. I wouldn't." Leia ground to a halt. Her brown eyes turn to the Queen. Breha's heart couldn't sink, but it certainly felt like it did. Leia's chin wobbled. "I would not break Alderaan's Peace." She said, then took a slow breath in, Breha knew more was coming. "But," there it was, "I will not let ideals of Peace blind me to a reality of," she broke off, starting again in an instant "a reality where people are slaves, and rulers are cruel, and while people, even people not our own, are," Leia's chin wobbled more dangerously, "are hurting." She finished on a note Breha had not heard before. Desperation. Leia wasn't crying, but it was a near thing. Breha stood from her couch and glided to where her daughter and the Nabooian ambassador stood. When had such knowledge come to her daughter, they had told her about the horrors of the war and even of continuing or new injustices done in the galaxy. But never before had it touched Leia. 

"We can teach you non-lethal defence." Breha began and was cut off, Leia spun out of her arms and there was a fire in her eyes. 

"No!" Leia's cry shocked them both. Breha watched as Karvan started then stared intently at the child. "I must. Not just non-lethal. I must learn to be silent and unseen and I must know how…" to kill. Breha frowned, Leia couldn't even say it, it was both reassuring and unconvincing. Before she could speak Karvan stepped forward, knelt to Leia's level. 

"You will give you word then. You will not use such measures lightly, you will be banned all training if you hurt even the roughest maid with the techniques you are taught. Violence will never be your first resort. Killing will always be a final measure, and you will study your healing and pray to the spirits to preserve you from even needing this knowledge." Leia was transfixed by Karvan's intent stare. She nodded. Karvan released her and Leia swore to it. She swore to it all and seemed relieved to be bound to the oath. Breha watched her child and wondered about the words: I must.

\---

Luke slipped. He was just that exhausted. His shoulders were mostly used to the strain of the pickaxe, his ears accustomed to the racket of the hand-drill. He was doing better than even some of the older children. Luke had stopped trying to make friends because they just got skeletal and died. Luke had muscles in his shoulders, they bunched and wriggled under his skin like sand-swimmers. He ate just as little as the others did, but his muscles grew. Everyone else his age became bones and died. Luke tried not to think about the other ways they died. 

Exhaustion killed many more than the Masters. Then the Masters actively did, Luke corrected. Too little food, too much work, too weak to crawl safely they lost their grip and plummeted down the cracks. Luke had seen one man take out four others on his way. He had been too exhausted to scream, so without warning the others had not had time to move or cling tighter. Well, the last two had, but by then the weight was too much and they had been knocked from the side of the crack to tumble into the depths. All the slaves had paused waiting, listening for the quite dull impact and the end of screaming. Then they had gotten back to work. Phrik wouldn't mine itself. 

When Luke slipped it was all his fault. He had found a seam of Phrik. And was distracted. He was pretty good at feeling for the metal in the texture of the walls. The monitor bots did not shed enough light to make it out. So touch it was if you wanted to eat. There was no food for slaves that did not find Phrik. Of course, killing other slaves and stealing their Phrik was discouraged. But in the cracks, there were no Masters to stop them. 

So it was that Luke did not notice the other larger slave reaching up towards him. Not until the slave grabbed his ankle, dragged it from its place and sent Luke falling into the endless depth of the crack. He hit the side and cracked his head and was still falling. He scrabbled at a wall, his momentum to fast to catch a handhold. He was still falling. A monitor bot dodged around him, it's irritated buzz zipping by in a rush of wind. Luke panicked. He reached and grabbed and fell and hope flipped inside out and became fear and then the world slowed. Luke fell against the wall. He gripped it shaking and breathless. His heart thrummed in his ears so he couldn't hear the ragged sobbing of his lungs. 

It took a long while to unlock his grip from the wall. He looked down. And saw the ground. It stank. Ragged husks of people, the faint motion of small scavengers. Luke could barely make it out in the darkness, but he was grateful for that. The bottom of the crack was lined with the bodies of slaves. One day the cracks would be filled and no-one would fall anymore. 

Luke reached up and began the slow climb. Fingers sliding over stone feeling out the Phrik he knew was there. 

\---

Tucked into the shelter of a craggy ridge a piecemeal hut creaked and sand oozed through cracks in the walls. Obi-wan Kenobi eyed a growing pile of sand and cursed all of Tatooine. He'd have to sweep tomorrow. Or whenever this blasted storm ended. Sometimes the sandstorms went on for days. He could go out into it. Make a shield of the force. He had meant to check on the Lars. Hadn't he? The hut creaked again and the piles of sand grew. He didn't really want to see the boy. Anakin's boy. Obi-wan was sick of sand. He left the creaking hut for the basement dug laboriously into the rock by some industrious person years ago. He inspected the containers. He had tried that one yesterday and it was already three-quarters empty. He might as well finish it off. It wasn't a bad attempt. The sour aftertaste was unpleasant, but the alcohol content put his mind in a peaceful oblivion. 

He was halfway through the second container when the storm ended. Absently noting the diminished creaking Obi-wan wondered why he had been considering leaving the hut at all.


End file.
